Re: RICHIES BACK!!! commin' at ya!

[Guest guest]

Hi, Richie thanks for brilliant resume of your op and good luck... never realised you were 100kg, I must be more respectful to you in future.

tonym

RICHIES BACK!!! commin' at ya!

Hi guys, I just got home today. Had a total of 253 emails to get through, and with a few walks and but crunches thrown in inbetween, i just managed it, so i have time for an update for those interested.

Gas, Miss Washington, Aussie , Gail... well done.

PHIL MERCHANT... i guess i missed it all happening for ya buddy, so fingers crosses, and i am waiting to hear how it goes.. a breeze i am sure.

*****************

My Update...

Thanks to everyone who mailed me in the group & 1on1, its really touching, and i really sincerely mean that. I wish i took my laptop with me, cus the first two days were tuff, and your mails would have boosted me !

Thanks

What you are about to read is my diary of my stay, it will take a while, but if you are interested, i hope it answers some questions about Belgium, and the way they do things a little differently.

Any questions about anything, plaese mail me, but put "RICHIE" in the subject, cus i can't keep up with all the posts these days.

Now some oth you will think " what the hell " at some of the things regarding recovery.. cus i know i did... but just bear with me..

Diary of my

Resurfacing Experience

Tuesday 13th November 2001

We arrived at Bruxelles International Airport slightly later than we were supposed to, and missed the train to the city of Gent, where my resurfacing procedure was to take place. We then waited 1 hour for the next train, which after calling the surgeon to inform him, was not a huge problem.

We arrived at the hospital, and whilst they showed my better half to her room, I was whisked away for x-rays, as they had to make up some time for me missing the train. They made X-rays of:

my chest full pelvic shot with my legs in the straight position shot of just my bad hip with my legs in the straight position shot of just my bad hip with my legs in the ‘Frog leg’ position

Then they took rather a large number of blood samples which were whisked away to the lab, and straight after came a nurse to give me an Electro Cardiogram (ECG). The ECG was actually a surprise, as I expected a huge machine, but it turned out to be something resembling a portable fax machine.

This all took about 45 minutes… They do not play around in a Belgian hospital…. as I was shown many times later!

I was then shown to my room where the staff of the ward came to introduce themselves to us, very nice welcome indeed.

Nadege and I had dinner together in my room, and at about 7pm I had a chat with the Anaesthetist, a very nice guy, and seemed quite young for such a job.

This all went smoothly, and after he left, the nurse came in to prepare me for the next day. This included all the usual blood pressure tests & temperature. They got out a BIC razor and shaved my leg and thigh.. which made Nadege giggle a little.., they then squirted a 400ml bottle of liquid inside my rear end, which after about 5 mins made me go running to the bathroom, with little time to spare.

They finished by giving me a shot of ‘FRAXIPARINE (Nadroparinum Calcium 4ml)). This shot was continued every night at 8pm, and is a blood thinner variant of HEPARINE. It comes in a great little self retracting safety syringe that I have never seen before. I will take this shot every night at 19.00h for a further 6 weeks after arriving home.

I also started with pills 3 times a day to reduce the risk of calcium formations on the prosthesis. ( Can’t remember the actual medical name for this, but its on keiths site)

The pills are called “INDOCID, 25mg”

I then got introduced to my room mate, a great guy called who was a Belgian Fire Fighter. He spoke good English , and over the coming days was a great moral lifter and source of inspiration. We ended up becoming firm friends.

Wednesday14th November

I woke up at 7am with the noise of them taking my room mate for surgery. He was booked in for 8am, 1st of the day, and me for 10am..second of the day.

I fell asleep, and was woken up at about 8.30am.

They gave me some premed, put on my TED (Anti Thrombosis) Stockings, and gave me 15 mins to chat with Nadege before I went down to the theatre.

The night before I already gave one of the nurses a letter that I composed over several weeks, that should be given to Nadege if anything went wrong in the surgery and for example I did not wake up.. (just one of those things )

They carted me off at around 09.30am. I met all the assistants in the theatre, and the last thing I remember saying was something like “Please… just make sure I get a BHR”…..and the world turned black.

ZZZZZZZZZ::::::::::::ZZZZZZZZZZZ::::::::::::::ZZZZZZZZZZZZ:::::::::ZZZZZZZZZZ

I woke up to that nauseous, sleepy sensation, and a very uncomfortable feeling in my hip, like an extremely serious muscle ache / cramp / tear / rip.. ( you know)..

I waited a few mins, and got the strength to lift up my head and look at my feet.. they were both still there, and I had a huge foam wedge between my legs.

(THE FOLLOWING WAS A SCREWED UP MOMENT)

A recovery room nurse came over to ask how I felt, I said fine, and then asked her if she knew what type of prosthesis I had.

She asked “what type of prosthesis?”

I said “ in my hip”

She looked at me and said “ well, if you have the foam wedge between your legs, it means that you did not get the English one, because for that we never use the wedge, so you have a T.H.R.!”

I died!!, I went back to sleep actually feeling something what I have never felt before, and I would think it was an instant depression.

I was woken up by the Surgeon some time later, who also asked how I was.

My reply was something like “well, it didn’t go so well did it?”

He said “ why you think that?”

I said “well, the nurse says that I have a THR, because you never use this foam wedge with a BHR”

He looked at me and said

“everything went very well, you have a BHR… I just used the wedge because you were moving around a lot in the recovery room!.. so don’t worry, go back to sleep, and have sweet dreams!” JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

And I did have sweet dreams!

I spent the rest of the day drifting in and out of unconsciousness, but feeling very happy and content with myself! The only thing bothering me were severe muscle cramps and twitches. At the time caused by having my legs Velcro’d in to the wedge and I couldn’t flex my hip muscles.

What I learned also after explaining this to the Surgeon, was that he took the opportunity of lengthening my leg by about 2.5cm. … no wonder I had muscle cramps.. a whole year of teenage growing pains in 1 hour! J

That night I slept very bad, and needed a few painkiller tablets.

Thursday 15th November.

Surgery +1

The painkillers that they gave me the night before did pretty much nothing at all. So come 06.00am, I was shattered and shaking with pain, so they gave me a shot of painkiller. I don’t know the name and didn’t care, but it came with a syringe & the BIGEST bloody needle I have ever seen attached to a syringe. That went in my left thigh muscle… and how it missed the bone I will never know.. J

15 mins later I was loving life again, and the world was a beautiful place with bright lights and lovely colours… hehe

I had breakfast at about 07.00h, and the Physiotherapist came to show my room mate and me some bed exercises. This went on for about 20 mins, after which he asked if I could get out of bed and try the crutches.. I wanted to , seeing as I had no pain… but I was dizzy as hell and couldn’t stand up.

After lunch at around 2pm, I asked if we could try the walking bit again, and they said its better I use the Zimmer frame for the first attempt, just in case I am still a bit high from the injection.

This was a great surprise, and I walked about 10 meters down the corridor and back, putting around 50% of my 100KG on the operated leg.

It felt great! No joint pain, just the incision flexing, and tight muscles.

I was very happy with things. Later in the night the pain came back, and this time was handled just by a COCODAMOL tablet at 10pm, and although I slept very bad, I never needed another painkiller until 07.00h the next morning.

Friday 16th November

Still lots of muscular pain, but after the loosening exercises it subsided enough to become comfortable. Went for a walk with crutches, and did about 50 meters with 50% weight bearing.

That afternoon I had a great chat with the surgeon, and was telling him about how nice it feels with 50% weight bearing. He looked at me surprised , and told me that I should be 100% weight bearing!

This took me by surprise, as I understood most people are not 100% until about 6 weeks later.

My next walk of the day I put about 80% weight bearing for 50 meters, and the next walk 100% .

This I found incredible, and my girlfriend did not believe it, so I got her to put a finger between my hand and the handle of the crutch, and took a few steps to show her that I was only using the crutch for balance……

She turned white….. and me also!! J

The only pain I have is from the muscles, and I think probably from the stretching during leg lengthening. The incision is just a dull ache.

I had a very bad case of rear end gas today, and my room mate also, and luckily I found that Belgian Fire Fighters humour goes very well with ex Brit Marine humour…

In total today I did 5 walks, at about 50 meters each.

Saturday 17th November

Friday night proved to be the worst nights sleep I had yet. I just could not get comfortable, and woke up every 15 mins fighting with the sheets and the pillow.

It is now 3 days since the surgery, and overall I think its going very well, and I think that my muscular pain is now about equal with a normal surf patient, that has not needed leg lengthening. I have kept up with my room mate today, after been behind a few days because of my cramps.

The extreme muscle tightness is loosening up, and I think that this is what really put me behind.

My Range of motion (ROM) is now greater than it has been in the last 8 years. In fact, there is very little difference (when laid in bed) between my good side and operated side when I straighten my legs with my feet pointing upwards, and then turn my feet outwards, or inwards.

When I pull my feet about a foot inwards, so that my knees are bent, and push my knees outwards, there is almost no difference in the angle at all. And both knees can be almost touching the bed.

My walking is now at a stage where my leg is straight when it takes my weight, and I just need to concentrate on ‘step length’ and ‘step timing’.

All in all today, I probably walked about 400 meters.

Sunday 18th November

Yesterday was my best day yet, doing 8 walks. Just a dull ache from the incision, and the dull ache of the muscles, that are now really learning that they are longer than they were a few days ago.

The prosthesis seems solid, although obviously it takes 6 weeks for the ingrowth surface to take a solid hold, I trust my BHR completely-

For the first time since we arrived, I had a good sleep, so good in fact that I was woken by the staff at 07.15am, as my breakfast was sitting on my table for half an hour already!! J

A few of the nurses and ward staff have commented on how good I look, I put this down to a good nights sleep.

I did my 50 meter walk around the ward, and after breakfast I walked to the restaurant on the top floor to have a coffee with Nadege as she took breakfast.

This trip probably took about 160 meters in total, and we finished with a ‘ward walk’ of about 50 meters…

Today so far I have walked about 260 meters in total and its not even noon yet.

It is now 18.00h, and I have some severe cramps, this is not really surprising as between waking up and 14.00h, I have done my 160meter restaurant trip, and walked the ‘ward’ 6 times (in all about 450 meters).

I laid on the bed at 14.00h, and Nadege started running her fingers through my hair (which I love) and I fell asleep. As I have been so sleepless for the last 5 days, she let me sleep.

What she didn’t realise, and of course I didn’t either, was that I slept without a pillow between my legs….. NOT GOOD!

Those muscles were a strechin’ !

20.00h, and muscle exercises have loosened me up. Although I will never make this mistake again, it has probably worked well to help stretch the muscles.

Also, I woke up with a nasty looking red / purple mark , about the size of a melon on the inside of my operated thigh. It looks nasty but apparently its just the dead blood following gravity to the lowest part of my leg at the time…. PHEW!!

Today I also spent a lot of time convincing Nadege that I was feeling good enough to experiment making love ;-)

Of course she said NO!.. and that I should heal more first ! (ARGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!)

Monday 19th November

After overdoing things yesterday, I took it easy today. I did 6 ‘ward walks’, and spent most of the day reading. All in all feeling pretty great with myself.

I called my Airline company to check if my return flight was still ok(after the nightmare with my outbound flight).. it was running on schedule.

I also told them that I would need special assistance at the terminal,and they said no problem.

Tuesday 20th November

Flew home today.

They gave me a morning dose of FRAXIPARINE for the flight, just to reduce the risk of an “economy class induced Thrombosis” hehe

Every 20 mins on the flight (flight time 1 hour 45 mins), I walked up and down the central isle twice, and spent 5 mins doing exercises.

The cabin crew were great about it, and gave me enough leeway as I wanted.

So at Bruxelles we got a wheelchair, but we had to confirm it at the check in first (long walk to get to the check in), and then collect it ourselves from the other side of the terminal & Nadege had to push me (I am a big guy)… mmmmm

Nadege ( being the angel she is) told me to sit and relax whilst she went and got it.

At Barcelona, it was a different story. As we exited the aircraft, on to the mobile walkway, there was a guy waiting just outside the door of the plane with the wheelchair, and he pushed me all the way through the airpost, baggage claim, immigration and then to the taxi rank!! ( he got a nice tip!)

Its good to be home!! I negotiated our 3 flights of stairs with no problem, although it did take some time. The way they recommend is time consuming, I believe that I could do it better my own way.. but why risk it for an extra 3 minutes right???

The end!

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[Guest guest]

>

Richie,

I just finished reading the post of your experience. I smiled all

the way through with a warm feeling in my heart. So happy for you

that you have your BHR. The recovery room experience with the nurse

must have been worse than the nightmares prior to surgery. But you

definitely know to be very, very happy with ALL the pain of recovery!

If you ever get down just think of that nurse.

Thanks for the enlightenment on the whole experience. With minor

differences it probably is similar to all the surf surgeries.

Trudy